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Editorial: The gun filibuster

Posted:
06/18/2016 08:05:05 PM MDT

This frame grab provided by C-SPAN shows Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. speaking on the floor of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016, where he launched a filibuster demanding a vote on gun control measures. The move comes three days after 49 people were killed in a mass shooting in Orlando. (/ C-SPAN)

In a desperate attempt to wrest control of the gun debate from right-wing extremists, a U.S. senator still haunted by memories of the mass murder of 20 small children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 decided last week not to abide business as usual. Chris Murphy of Connecticut settled on a tactic most famously used by the right wing to oppose civil rights — the filibuster.

Murphy was recognized to speak just after 11 a.m. Wednesday and held the Senate floor for nearly 15 hours, yielding only for questions from colleagues, more than 30 of whom engaged him in the colloquy. Among them was Colorado's Michael Bennet, who referenced reform measures passed by Colorado's General Assembly following the Aurora theater mass shooting, which occurred just five months before the Sandy Hook massacre.

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting yet, last weekend's nightclub nightmare in Orlando, where 49 were killed and 53 wounded, Republicans have focused on Islamist terrorism, citing shooter Omar Mateen's statement of allegiance to ISIS. They and their allies at the National Rifle Association have sought to turn the tables on Democrats by accusing them of failing to put the focus where it belongs — on terrorism and Islamist extremism. Their presumptive presidential candidate, Donald Trump, advocated discriminatory measures aimed at Muslims generally.

But it is Republicans who have blocked legislation to bar anyone on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun, claiming there is a greater danger of Americans being wrongfully included on the list and denied their constitutional rights. Their alternative is to give the FBI a short window — three days in a bill from Texas Sen. John Cornyn — to investigate a pending gun sale to someone on the watch list. This is inane, providing nowhere near enough time for a thorough investigation.

The inconvenient truth for both sides is that Mateen was not on the terrorist watch list when he bought his guns legally at a Florida gun store a week before the shootings. He had been on it earlier, but was removed when an FBI investigation turned up nothing. There has been talk of expanding the ban to anyone who has been on the list at any time in the previous five years.

Republicans and the NRA seem to have forgotten that until recently our mass shooters have not been Muslims, let alone radical jihadists. Disturbed, young, white Americans — Adam Lanza and James Holmes —were responsible for the Sandy Hook and Aurora massacres, respectively.

"All I knew when I got to Washington this week was that I had had enough, that I just couldn't stand by and do nothing if this Congress was going to go on and pretend like Orlando hadn't happened, just like they basically pretended that Sandy Hook didn't happen, and every mass tragedy after that," Murphy said Thursday.

"We also didn't go into (Wednesday) afternoon with much of a plan, frankly. We just went down there because we just couldn't sit back and let business as usual proceed. So I can't say we knew exactly what we wanted to get out of it. We made demands and I'm glad that in the end we're going to at least get to see where senators are in the wake of the largest, most tragic mass shooting in this country's history."

The filibuster produced an agreement to hold votes this week on two Democratic proposals — banning gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list and expanding background checks to cover sales at gun shows and over the Internet — as well as Republican alternatives more friendly to the NRA. With Republicans in control of the chamber, there is little chance of meaningful legislation being passed.

Nevertheless, Murphy's filibuster is perhaps a sign that acceptance of these periodic slaughters of innocents is finally wearing thin. Republicans have stood arm-in-arm with the NRA against any meaningful reform because it has been good politics for them. Only when the American people start turning out of office those who abet mass murder will America have a chance to restore sanity to its gun laws.

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